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mystery novel

Nancy Stancill’s New Mystery Is Both a Thriller and a Work of Alternate History 

December 08, 2024 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

Since retiring from her career as an investigative reporter for The Charlotte Observer in 2009, Nancy Stancill has focused much of her attention on writing her Annie Price mystery series.  The third book in this series, Deadly Secrets, will officially launch on December 12, 2024.  

This book has many connections to Nancy’s life in Charlotte.  Like Nancy, Annie Price is an investigative reporter. Also like Nancy, Annie Price lives in Charlotte but has a deep interest in the Blowing Rock area.  In one important way, however, the setting for Deadly Secrets is different from the place that Nancy now calls home, for in Nancy’s novel North Carolina has been divided into two states. The mountain area is now called Westcarolina, and it is the location of a series of secret and deadly plots. For this reason, Deadly Secrets is both a political thriller and a work of alternate history.  

I recently contacted Nancy and asked her how she came to write Deadly Secrets.  Here is what she sent to me:

Deadly Secrets, my first novel set in Charlotte, launches Thursday, Dec. 12. The first two books of the mystery series take place in Texas, where I worked as a reporter for 15 years.  Why did it take so long to bring my protagonist, Annie Price, investigative reporter, to North Carolina?  It’s a question I’ve asked myself since I began creating Deadly Secrets about three years ago. 

Fourteen years ago, I was newly retired and living in London when I began writing Saving Texas, inspired by some fairly dangerous reporting I did for the Houston Chronicle. The stories involved a corrupt community college. The resulting book morphed into a secession theme. Texas is one of several states where support for seceding from the United States is unusually popular.

In my second book, Winning Texas, my reporter Annie investigates a variation on secession. I knew I wanted to write a third book set in North Carolina and waited for inspiration. In the meantime, I wrote a memoir called Tall, which focused on my experiences as a six-foot-tall woman.

National conservative politics gave me a hook for setting my third book in North Carolina. What if a mega-minister of a huge evangelical church got state and national support to split North Carolina into two states? The minister, Kingston Avery, would become governor of the renamed Westcarolina and begin to remake it as “the first Christian state.”

Politicians would be thrilled to have two new conservative senators and a few more Congressional representatives in the conservative-oriented new state.  King, the new minister-governor, would begin taking away personal freedoms with strange new policies. Soon, Annie, newly hired by the fictional Charlotte Press, is investigating King, his church and state and its secret plots and murders.  King’s major headquarters are in his 12-bedroom mansion in Blowing Rock, a favorite town of mine.

Hurricane Helene blew through the mountains as I was preparing to launch the book. Since I have loved the N.C. mountains since childhood, I decided to devote half my book proceeds to a charity, https://www.heartswithhands.org

As usual, I called upon my own experiences being recruited by the Charlotte Observer to describe Charlotte as I saw it as a stranger in 1993.  In her job interview, Annie sees the busy airport, the beautiful tall buildings and verdant landscape of uptown and the morning energy of the newspaper’s newsroom.  (Of course, the building was imploded a few years ago and there is no newsroom. I couldn’t bear to use that in the book. Since it’s fiction, I describe it as it was when I first started working there.)

Annie initially worries that Charlotte will be too small and quiet after the roaring energy of Houston. But she loves the vibe of an easier city to live in after the traffic and pollution problems of Houston.  Much of the book contains other familiar details: Annie’s first home in Plaza Midwood, her move to a luxurious Myers Park house after her marriage, and the delicious barbecue lunch she enjoys at Bridges Barbecue in Shelby.

As a writer and now a 31-year resident of Charlotte (minus three years in London) I found that finally setting a book here was a pure pleasure.

(Stancill’s book is available now at Park Road Books for $19.95 and as of Dec. 12, on Amazon and other online sites. It’s published by Black Rose Writing of Texas. A book signing is scheduled at Park Road Books on Jan. 9.)  For more information about Deadly Secrets and Nancy’s other books, please click on the following link: https://www.nancystancill.com

I congratulate Nancy on the publication of Deadly Secrets.  As everyone who has read my blog knows, I take a special interest in novels written by residents of Charlotte as well as novels set in Charlotte. Since Deadly Secrets checks both boxes, it makes a great addition to Storied Charlotte’s literary history (or alternate history).

Tags: Alternate Historymystery novel

Sarah Archer, Landis Wade, and Their Podcasting Mystery

November 06, 2023 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

It’s a mystery to me if Mark Twain really said, “Write what you know.” However, I know that this bit of writing advice is often attributed to Twain, and I also know that Sarah Archer and Landis Wade have followed this advice when writing their new novella, Death by Podcasting.  Sarah and Landis (along with Hannah Larrew) are the co-hosts of the popular Charlotte Readers Podcast, where they regularly interview authors.  Sarah and Landis know the world of podcasting inside and out, and they make extensive use of this knowledge in Death by Podcasting. 

In many ways, Death by Podcasting fits within the sub-genre of the cozy mystery, but instead of taking place in a country estate or a quaint village, this mystery largely takes place in the virtual setting of a podcast. The central characters in Death by Podcasting go by the names of Raspy Fuse and Salty Remarks.  Like Sarah and Landis, Raspy and Salty are the co-hosts of a podcast featuring author interviews.  A few days before they are scheduled to record a live episode, Raspy and Salty receive a mysterious warning that one of the three authors whom they are scheduled to interview intends to kill them.  At first, Raspy and Salty don’t take the warning seriously, but they soon learn that threat is real.  What follows is a fast-paced and humorous account of their efforts to solve this mystery before it’s too late. 

I contacted Sarah and Landis and asked them for more information about this mystery.  Here is what they sent to me:

As co-hosts on Charlotte Readers Podcast, we thought it would be fun to co-write a mystery involving the intersection of podcasters and writers. We had plenty of inspiration to write a comedic mystery novella about podcasting, writing, and the sometimes-cutthroat world of modern publishing–though thankfully, no real-life murder inspiration.

We came up with a story about two podcasters, Raspy Fuse and Salty Remarks, who receive an anonymous text warning them that one of the authors they’re set to interview for their year-end live finale event plans to kill them. They must use their experience reading and writing mysteries to figure out which of the suspects–poet William Z. Wisp, thriller writer Edwin Nocturne, or romance novelist Della Molasses–might have deadly motivations. Along the way, they uncover the secrets connecting these writers to their own podcast team, and to another podcaster who died mysteriously.  

This was a fun experiment in co-writing for both of us. In our November 7th episode, we talk about the process of taking turns writing and editing each other’s work, and the factors that can make co-writing both easier and harder than writing solo.  None of our real-life podcast guests are believed to be murderers, so we plan to continue podcasting, as dangerous as it may.

The book comes out November 14th and will be available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook. We’ll be at Park Road Books on November 15th at 7 PM to celebrate the launch. We can’t wait to share it with readers and listeners, and hope they enjoy the tongue-in-cheek writing references and Charlotte Readers Podcast Easter eggs sprinkled throughout the story!

I congratulate Sarah and Landis on the publication of Death by Podcasting.  I have long thought that Charlotte Readers Podcast is one of Storied Charlotte’s treasures, but now I will also think of it as the inspiration for a very entertaining story.

Tags: mystery novel

Landis Wade’s Deadly Declarations

April 04, 2022 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

Landis Wade, the founder and host of the Charlotte Readers Podcast, is also the author of a new book titled Deadly Declarations: An Indie Retirement Mystery.  The official launch date for the book is April 5, 2022, but I had the privilege and pleasure of being able to read an advance review copy. 

Deadly Declarations is set in a fictional retirement community located in Charlotte.  Three residents of the “Independence Retirement Community” join forces to solve a mystery related to the famous and controversial Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence.  In this fast-paced mystery novel, Landis completely demolishes the stereotypes associated with retirement communities.  The protagonists in this novel are anything but retiring.  They are feisty, independent, and fully engaged in the world around them.  They take on a powerful law firm, a corrupt politician, and a secret society, and they prove that they are more than equal to the challenge.  For readers of Deadly Declarations, the phrase “respect your elders” takes on a whole new meaning.

I recently contacted Landis and asked how he came to be so interested in the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence and why he decided to incorporate it in his mystery novel.  Here is what he sent to me:

For many Charlotte residents, the story of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence is a tale of unknown Charlotte history hiding in plain sight. Although I grew up in Charlotte, I don’t recall the Meck Dec story being taught in public schools, and if someone told me when I was a boy that Charlotte was first to declare independence from Great Britain, it didn’t stick. As I got older, it never occurred to me to ask why the date May 20, 1775 appears on the North Carolina state flag or why some North Carolina license plates use the phrase: “First in Freedom.”

As a result of Charlotte Readers Podcast, the Meck Dec story came to life when I interviewed local author Scott Syfert about his book The First American Declaration of Independence? The Disputed History of the Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20, 1775. I learned that the Meck Dec story is full of drama and fraught with controversy. There are faithful believers and ardent non-believers who date back to the time of the founding fathers. John Adams was a true believer in what he called “one of the greatest curiosities and one of the deepest mysteries that ever occurred to me,” and Thomas Jefferson was insistent the Meck Dec was “spurious,” saying he “must remain an unbeliever in the apocryphal gospel.” Adams suggested that Jefferson lifted phrases from the Meck Dec for his July 4, 1776 Declaration of Independence, setting the stage for North Carolinians and Virginians to debate the veracity of the Meck Dec story to this day.  

I became intrigued with the idea of solving the Meck Dec mystery through fiction, and it occurred to me that a plotline where the characters put the Meck Dec on trial in a Charlotte courtroom might be a fun and interesting way to get there. One of my goals was to write a contemporary mystery that got people talking about the Meck Dec, so I was thrilled when BookLife Review said of the novel: “it’s hard to tell where history ends and fiction begins.”

In the process of reading Deadly Declarations, I learned a lot about the history of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, but Landis incorporates this historical information so smoothly in his story that it never disrupts the entertaining plot.  For readers who are familiar with the Charlotte area, another pleasure associated with reading this novel is recognizing the local landmarks that Landis includes in his novel.  Among the Charlotte places that he mentions are Park Road Books, Green’s Lunch, and the Mecklenburg County Courthouse.

For readers who want to know more about Landis and his new novel, please click on the following link:  https://landiswade.com/  For readers who would like to meet Landis and hear him talk about his new novel, he and Scott Syfert will talk about Deadly Declarations and the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence at Park Road Books on Thursday, April 7, 2022, at 7:00 p.m.  Copies of his book will be available for purchase at this in-store event.

When Landis retired from his career as a trial lawyer in 2018, he redefined his life. He launched his Charlotte Readers Podcast, took numerous classes and workshops on writing fiction, wrote a series of three holiday-themed novellas, and set his sights on becoming a full-fledged mystery writer.  With the publication of Deadly Declarations, Landis has more than achieved his goal.  I hereby declare that there is a new mystery writer in Storied Charlotte, and his name is Landis Wade. 

Tags: mystery novel

Genre Fiction Set in Charlotte

June 29, 2020 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

Charlotte is not only the home of bestselling author Kathy Reichs, but it is also the setting for many of her popular Temperance Brennan mystery novels.   Reichs is one of many genre fiction writers who use Charlotte as a setting for their stories.  These authors show different sides of Charlotte, but they all draw attention to the Queen City.  For the purposes of this Storied Charlotte blog post, I am focusing on ten such authors.  Often these authors write books that are published as part of a series, such as the Temperance Brannan Series.  In such cases, I highlight one book in the series. Since all ten books on this list are examples of genre fiction, I mention the appropriate genre for each book on the list. 

A Conspiracy of Bones by Kathy Reichs is the latest book in the Temperance Brennan Series.  Published in March 2020, this book is 19th volume in the series.  Many of the books in this series are set in Montreal, but A Conspiracy of Bones takes place in Charlotte.  In the beginning of this book, Temperance (Tempe) Brennan is recovering from neurosurgery in her Charlotte home when she receives a series of disturbing text messages from an unknown sender.  These texts all include images of a faceless and handless corpse.  Responding to these texts, Tempe sets out to discover the identity of the corpse as well as determine why the images are being sent to her.  As is the case with all of the books in this series, Tempe draws on her expertise as a forensic anthropologist to solve this latest mystery.  In this book, however, Tempe has to deal with a new Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner who refuses to help Tempe with her investigation.  For more information about Reichs and her Temperance Brennan Series, please click on the following link:  https://kathyreichs.com/

Hard Day’s Knight by John G. Hartness is the first volume in Hartness’s urban fantasy series titled The Black Knight Chronicles.  Published by Falstaff Books in December 2010,  Hard Day’s Knight is about the adventures of two young vampires, James Black and Gregory Knightwood, who work as private investigators in Charlotte.  In this book, they are hired to save a boy from a witch’s curse, and in the process, they battle zombies, demons and various other paranormal characters, all set against the backdrop of Charlotte.  When asked about the setting for this series, Hartness said, “My characters live in my world, in Charlotte, NC, which happens to be where I live. …I set my series in the real Charlotte so that I could use real landmarks in the books. … I find as a reader that I really enjoy local color in a book, and the best way I could put that color into my books was to set them in places I could easily drive to if need be.  So in the end I decided not to build a world at all; I had a perfectly good one outside my front door.”  For more information about Hartness and his Black Knight Chronicles series, please click on the following link:  http://johnhartness.com/hard-days-knight/

Hornet’s Nest by Patricia Cornwell is a mystery novel that takes place in Charlotte.  This novel, which came out in 1997, has connections to Cornwall’s days as a crime reporter for The Charlotte Observer, where she worked from 1979 (the same year she graduated from Davidson College) to 1981.  Andy Brazil, one of the central characters in Hornet’s Nest, also works as a reporter for The Charlotte Observer.  He is on assignment to write about the day-to-day work of the Charlotte police, and as a result he ends up helping the Chief of Police (Judy Hammer) and the Deputy Chief (Virginia West) solve a mystery surrounding the serial killings of a number of out-of-town businessmen.  Hornet’s Nest launched Cornwell’s Andy Brazil Series.  For more information about Cornwell and her books, please click on the following link:  http://www.patriciacornwell.com/

Horse of a Different Killer is the first book in Jody Jaffe’s Natalie Gold Mystery Series.  When this mystery novel came out in 1995, it was named a finalist for an Agatha Award for Best First Mystery.  In writing this novel, Jaffe drew heavily on her experience as a feature writer for The Charlotte Observer and her longstanding interest in horse shows.  Natalie Gold, the central character in this story, is a fashion reporter for a newspaper called the Charlotte Commercial Appeal, but she is also a show rider with her own horse named Brenda Starr.  She boards her horse on a farm outside of Charlotte, and one day a top trainer is found beaten to death at this farm.  Natalie works with the paper’s top investigative reporter to solve this crime, and her knowledge of the horse show circuit proves to be invaluable.  For more information about Jaffe and her books, please click on the following link:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/j/jody-jaffe/

In the Midst of Passion by AlTonya Washington is a stand-alone romance novel published in 2006 by Dafina Books, a leading publisher of commercial fiction by African American authors.  In the beginning of the novel, Topaz Emerson (the owner of an auto-repair garage) meets Alexander (Alex) Rice (the owner of a newspaper called Queen City Happenings) on a deserted street on the outskirts of Charlotte.  He mistakenly thinks that she needs help with her car, but she has everything under control.  Still, as they talk, Topaz finds herself attracted to Alex.  She eventually learns, however, that Alex has a mysterious past that could jeopardize their budding relationship.  In explaining why she set this novel in Charlotte, Washington said, “I was living in Charlotte at the time and was inspired by the area and culture.”  In addition to writing romance novels, Washington is a college reference librarian.  She worked for the Davidson College Library for many years, and she is currently the Education Librarian for Winston-Salem State University.   For more information about Washington and her books, please click on the following link:  https://alsreaders.weebly.com/

Knight in Charlotte by Edward McKeown is a work of urban fantasy featuring Jeremy Leclerc, a Knight Templar and part-time graphic designer living in present-day Charlotte.  Published in 2013, this work is told in the form of a series of inter-related adventures.  The protagonist encounters a variety of supernatural characters, including angels, vampires, and demon bankers.  Specific places in and around Charlotte figure in the work, such as South Park, Central Avenue, Balantyne, and the Renaissance Festival located in Huntersville.  Knight in Charlotte is something of a departure for McKeown, who is known primarily for his science fiction novels set in other worlds.  However, when he moved from New York to Charlotte, he decided to use his new hometown as the setting for his Knight Templar stories.  For more information about McKeown and his books, please click on the following link:  https://edwardmckeown.weebly.com/

Larceny and Old Lace, the first book in Tamar Myers’s Den of Antiquity mystery series, came out in 1996.  The central character, Abigail Timberlake, opens an antique store in Charlotte that she calls the Den of Antiquity.  The store is located on the same block where her crotchety aunt Eulonia Wiggins operates a run-down antique/junk shop.  In fact, Abigail and Eulonia are both members of the Selwyn Avenue Antique Dealers Association.   In the beginning of the novel, Eulonia is found strangled by an antique bell pull.  Determined to find out who killed her aunt, Abigail becomes an amateur sleuth.  The Charlotte setting figures in most of the other books in the series, although the final books in the series take place in Charleston.   For more information about Meyers and her books, please click on the following link:  https://www.tamarmyers.com/

Let’s Get It On by Cheris Hodges is the first of several romance novels featuring Kenya Taylor and Maurice Goings.  Dafina Books, a major publisher of genre books by African American writers, brought out Let’s Get It On in 2008.  The story begins when Kenya (a successful Charlotte lawyer) and Maurice (a star player for the Carolina Panthers) run into each other while each is on vacation in the Bahamas.  The readers learn that Kenya and Maurice had an earlier relationship that ended on a sour note, but as the story progresses, they begin to rekindle their relationship.  Much of the novel takes place in Charlotte, and the Carolina Panthers figure prominently in the plot.  In writing this novel, Hodges drew on her experience covering the Panthers as a journalist for Charlotte’s Creative Loafing.  However, in her version of events, the Panthers win the Super Bowl.  For more information about Hodges and her books, please click on the following link: https://thecherishodges.com/

Pretty Little Girls is a mystery thriller by Charlotte writer Jenifer Ruff.  Published in 2019, Pretty Little Girls is the second book in the Agent Victoria Heslin Series, although it can be read as a stand-alone novel.  In this novel, FBI Agent Victoria Heslin is called to Charlotte to help the local police solve a mystery surrounding the kidnapping of a girl from a wealthy Charlotte family.  As Agent Heslin pursues her investigation, she uncovers a sex trafficking ring that is operating in the shadows of Charlotte.  The novel is fictional, but Ruff’s description of the sex trafficking operation is based on factual research.  For more information about Ruff and her books, please click on the following link:  https://jenruff.com/index.html

Pretty Poison is the first book in the Peggy Lee Garden Mystery Series by the prolific writing duo of Joyce and Jim Lavene.  The Lavenes lived just outside of Charlotte in the community of Midland.  However, they frequently visited Charlotte, and they drew extensively on their knowledge of Charlotte in their Peggy Lee Garden Mystery Series.  Pretty Poison came out in 2005 while the 8th and last book in the series came out in 2015, the same year that Joyce Lavene died.  Jim Lavene intended to keep the series going, but he died just six months after the death of his wife.  In Pretty Poison, Peggy Lee runs a garden shop in downtown Charlotte called The Potting Shed.  As the story opens, she comes to work on a fall day only to discover on the floor of her shop the body of one of Charlotte’s wealthiest citizens. She calls the police, and they quickly concludes that the victim was murdered by a homeless man.  Peggy, however, is not convinced and begins her own investigation.  The book abounds with references to Charlotte landmarks, such as Latta Arcade, Brevard Court, Anthony’s Caribbean Café, and Queens University.  For more information about Joyce and Jim Lavene and their books, please click on the following link:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/l/joyce-and-jim-lavene/

As the aforementioned books demonstrate, Charlotte figures prominently in many works of genre fiction.  The Queen City appeals especially to writers of mystery novels, but writers of romance and urban fantasy also use Charlotte as a setting for their stories.   These various genre writers show Charlotte from different angles and in different lights, but they all make contributions to Storied Charlotte. 

Tags: genre fictionmystery novelmystery seriesmystery thrillerromance novelsurban fantasy
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